Would Richard Wagner have approved of the Wagner Group?

Wagnerian exile

Would Richard Wagner have approved of the Wagner Group? While he is believed to have harboured anti-Semitic views and his music later became an inspiration for Adolf Hitler, the young Wagner was a left-wing activist. In 1849, in spite of serving with the Saxon court in Dresden, he joined an uprising against Prussian rule. He is believed to have been involved in making and distributing grenades and to have acted as a lookout. Several of his associates were killed or arrested and sentenced to death after the uprising failed, but Wagner fled to Switzerland. His exile had a happier outcome than that of Yevgeny Prigozhin, and he was able to return to Dresden 13 years later when a ban on him was lifted.

Grounded

A technical snag at the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) HQ in Hampshire led to 500 flights being cancelled on Monday. How many flights does NATS handle?

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– According to the Civil Aviation Authority there were 2.214m takeoffs/landing in the UK in 2019 (which collapsed to 812,000 in 2020 and 780,000 in 2021). The average is 6,065 per day, not counting the planes that fly over Britain on their way to and from other countries. According to NATS, around 7,000 planes a day use UK airspace.

– Globally, according to the flight-tracking service FlightAware, there were 17,944 planes in the skies at 5 p.m. last Monday.

Rubbish behaviour

How much rubbish was fly-tipped last year?

– 1.09m cases of fly-tipping were recorded by authorities in England in 2021/22, a fall from the year before but the second highest on record. The highest rate was in London, with 46 incidents per 1,000 people, and the lowest in the south-west, with 9 per 1,000.

– The most common places were highways, council land, footpaths and bridleways.